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Thursday, July 06, 2017

July 6, 1885

I'm
actually flying through this week's Throwback
Thursday by the
seat of my pants, as I haven't chosen a topic yet and probably won't until I
look through the events of July 6.
Apparently July 6 is a day that was filled with a LOT of significant
history, and picking one is next to impossible. Just have a look!

1483 - Richard III is crowned King of England

1777 - The Siege of Fort Ticonderoga takes place
during the American Revolutionary War

1779 - The Battle of Grenada takes place

1854 - The first convention of the United States
Republican Party is held in Jackson, Michigan

So,
those are all the subjects that I did not choose for today. So, what date will I be talking about this
week?

I'll admit that when I was looking at subjects to choose from, I was completely
at a loss as to pick a topic that seemed interesting. And then it hit me. I
needed to go back in time. Way back in
time.

Like, say...July 6, 1885. Yeah, we're going back in time one hundred and thirty-two
years.

And
the question related to this week's Throwback Thursday post is this. How many of you have heard of a disease
known as rabies?

I
know. Silly question. Most of us know what it is. And let's put it this way. It's a really BAD disease to get. Rabies is a viral disease that can cause the
swelling of the brain and has a ton of symptoms that are not very nice. Perhaps the most common of these symptoms is
the foaming of the mouth, as the disease causes increased saliva
production. And generally speaking,
rabies can be considered an instant death sentence, as a person who starts
showing symptoms will likely die from the disease within two to ten days afterwards. So, needless to say, it's not something that
you want to contract.

The
most common way to contract rabies is to come in contact with an animal that
has the rabies virus in them. While dog
bites are one way to contract them, it's important to know that dog bites only
make up 5% of rabies cases. You're
actually more likely to get rabies from a bat than you are a dog.

Of
course, prior to 1885, anybody who contracted rabies was going to die. And there was no way to prevent people who
had gotten bitten by a rabid animal to contract the disease in the first place.

At
least that was the case until Louis Pasteur came along.

Now,
if that name sounds familiar, it's because he's also the man who invented the
pasteurization process for milk and dairy products. But did you know that he also patented a vaccine for rabies along
with Emile Roux? It's quite impressive,
given that Pasteur wasn't a medical doctor at the time and could have easily
been charged with medical malpractice.
To everybody's surprise, the vaccine ended up being quite effective.

The vaccine was harvested from rabid rabbits already infected with the disease,
and the virus was purposely weakened within the nerve tissue by letting it dry
between a period of five to ten days.
And it was put to the ultimate test on July 6, 1885 when a nine year old
boy named Joseph Meister. Meister was bitten by a rabid dog, and it was feared that the
bite would cause him to die.

But
with the rabies vaccination that Pasteur developed, it was decided that it
would be used on Meister despite the fact that it was never tested on humans
and that the results were more or less unpredictable. But the treatment was very successful and Meister did not develop
the rabies virus. It also served as the
prototype for more effective virus treatments, and these days rabies can be
successfully treated and eradicated before symptoms begin to show - though
anyone who has ever undergone the rabies shot can probably tell you how painful
a procedure it can be. Although given
the alternative, it's a far sight better to undergo a series of shots than die.

As for what happened to Joseph Meister?
Well, after surviving the series of rabies shots, he went on to serve as
a caretaker for the Pasteur Institute until his death via suicide in 1940. In a tragic twist of fate, he had decided to
take his own life just ten days after Germany invaded Paris, France because he
had thought he had sent his family away to death - only for his family to return
the same day he died.

However, despite the bittersweet ending, Meister
- as well as Louis Pasteur - managed to help save thousands of lives each
year. That's something to celebrate.